The Best Kind of Christmas
This year, Christmas included watching Friday the 13th, a cartoon about agnosticism, baking usual and unusual Christmas cookies, and of course, more Costco.
Christmas with my family is never disappointing. I think it mainly stems from the joy we gain in spending time with each other. However, after too much time with them, you do hit a wall and suddenly dislike everyone in the room with a passion you never knew you had. But that happens in every family. Christmastime is the perfect amount of time to spend with them because I never really reach that point of ultimate frustration and annoyance. You know you have a real family when you can simply be yourself. Yes, your family will judge you and that will never change. What’s different is that they will love you for it anyways. When I step into my Dad’s house and see my brothers, it’s almost an immediate reaction where I suddenly melt into 100% Kayla. I’ve been noticing it more and more as I get older. I think it’s simply because I’m more grateful to spend time with my family, and it has become a bigger priority in my life. My parents no longer embarrass me (okay, not entirely true), my brothers and I genuinely heed each other’s advice, and even though we talk over one another all the time, we still find a way to listen to each other. We don’t recognize it, but we always find a way to be supportive.
So this Christmas did not let me down. First of all, my Dad made platefuls of grilled hamburgers. Who doesn’t want a hamburger?! But Chicago has had an incredibly mild winter (Hello beginning of the end of the world!), so the weather was perfect for grilling. They were appetizing, full of garlic, and a few steps up from our Christmas dinner at Costco that one year. Those hot dogs are so good though.
Our house doesn’t have a dining room, so we stood in random places while eating dinner. Eventually we congregated towards the television because Friday the 13th III was playing and that is a hard movie to ignore. This movie came out in 1982, and did you know this was the movie where Jason gets his mask?! I didn’t even know that was a thing. I may be late to this game, but I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Jason was a bit heavy for Christmas so we decided on something light and sweet for our next movie, “Smallfoot”. Yay for cute Yetis! But we weren’t even 10 minutes in when we started picking up on hints of religious questioning and agnosticism. Actually they weren’t hints as they were pretty blatant about it. I’m sure a few of us noticed, but I don’t think my Dad picked up on it. Perhaps it worked its way into his mind where now he’ll start asking questions. So slick Warner, so slick. With the occasional moments of my fiance and I exchanging glances of “Did they really just say that?”, we all somewhat enjoyed the movie. It was definitely cuter than Jason.
We can only take so much movie though. Well, except my Dad. He continued to watch two more movies that night - “The Christmas Chronicles” and “The Little Mermaid”. The Christmas Chronicles was actually a decent movie, but “The Little Mermaid” was a newer version based on a circus and it was bad, really, really bad. So while my Dad entertained himself with movies, the rest of us decided to do something a bit more creative.
Every year, we try to plan a Christmas DIY session together. A couple years ago we did the build and decorate your own gingerbread house, last year we built our own ornaments, and this year we decided to frost Christmas sugar cookies. Some of us definitely stepped out of the box with our Christmas molds, and created cookies like “Patrick the Starfish missing a leg”, “Kenny from South Park”, a fish, a man with a missing arm, and kale. Whatever it was, it all tasted good in the end. Too good because most of us ended up with stomach aches from all the sugar. We all agreed it was worth it.
Finally it was time for presents. It’s always exciting to know your presents are going to be from Costco. In order to capture all this Costco excitement, I decided to record a video of us opening presents. When is the last time someone recorded a home video? My parents used to record hours worth with their camcorders. But now people record quick moments for Instagram or SnapChat - and a lot of those don’t even get saved. I ended up recording a full 20 minutes as it didn’t take us very long to open presents. Mainly I did it because I’m a sap and want to start recording these moments together, but I also wanted my Mom to feel like she was there with us. She was back in Florida this winter and it definitely isn’t the same without her. She adds this energy to the room - really, because she is full of energy - but it’s also a positive energy. It’s never a dull moment with her, so recording it and knowing she would watch it later made her feel a little closer, and made the experience more exciting.
As we were all winding down that night, full on cookies and lingering memories of Jason murders, I’m sure we were all excited to play with our new Costco toys (which were sets of tupperware) the next day. And while my Dad drifted off to sleep, I’m sure he was questing the meaning of life and asking himself if there really was a God. I cozied up into bed smiling at these thoughts, knowing they make up the best kind of Christmas.